cegr80 wrote:Oh, it's a survivor joke, apparently? Can someone fill me in about this "kitchen" business?

During a certain period, like maybe two years ago, we kept getting new threads (a.k.a. spam) in the forum selling kitchens. It became quite a trend, and if I recall correctly, even Andy added a kitchen joke in one of the announcements. When he gave us announcements, you know.

This is what I think will be the 10th annivesary of 70000 Tons of Metal in 2020. Since Superbowl is played in Miami that year, I think the cruise will not take place during the Superbowl weekend. Either before (mid-January) or after (mid-February). Also I would think to celebrate the 10th, the destination might be Cuba since it seems to be the skipper’s “dream”. Which could mean, going back to Majesty of the Seas since as of right now’s planned shcedules for RCCL until 2020, it’s one of the only two RCCL ships going to Cuba. Maybe it might be a longer cruise (one extra night, with one extra stop). Using the Majesty for this also allows the usage of the same ship for the rebirth of Barge to Hell (maybe in late 2019), making it easier to sell out both cruise since it would be back to a smaller boat.

This is what I think will be the 10th annivesary of 70000 Tons of Metal in 2020. Since Superbowl is played in Miami that year, I think the cruise will not take place during the Superbowl weekend. Either before (mid-January) or after (mid-February). Also I would think to celebrate the 10th, the destination might be Cuba since it seems to be the skipper’s “dream”. Which could mean, going back to Majesty of the Seas since as of right now’s planned shcedules for RCCL until 2020, it’s one of the only two RCCL ships going to Cuba. Maybe it might be a longer cruise (one extra night, with one extra stop). Using the Majesty for this also allows the usage of the same ship for the rebirth of Barge to Hell (maybe in late 2019), making it easier to sell out both cruise since it would be back to a smaller boat.

Thoughts?

I like your thoughts!

Going earlier I think would be out of the question. Because in my opinion going back to mid January is putting it way too close to Christmas. Flights, accommodation, etc. would be more expensive, probably harder to book bands as family committments around that time etc.

bodomdragon wrote:70K will NEVER happen on the Majesty again. It's part of the past. Period.

Agreed. As much as I liked the Majesty, Andy has clearly indicated something bigger and better was on the horizon. I'm still uncertain that an Oasis-class ship is a possibility for 70K due to its open-deck design, though. As for Cuba, the only ships in Royal's current fleet small enough to make port in Havana are the Majesty and the Empress...and they bought Empress back from Pullmantur, a subsidiary, for the express purpose of Cuba visits. She is significantly smaller than even Majesty. I think the Skipper's dream of visiting Cuba will likely remain just that.

bodomdragon wrote:70K will NEVER happen on the Majesty again. It's part of the past. Period.

Agreed. As much as I liked the Majesty, Andy has clearly indicated something bigger and better was on the horizon. I'm still uncertain that an Oasis-class ship is a possibility for 70K due to its open-deck design, though. As for Cuba, the only ships in Royal's current fleet small enough to make port in Havana are the Majesty and the Empress...and they bought Empress back from Pullmantur, a subsidiary, for the express purpose of Cuba visits. She is significantly smaller than even Majesty. I think the Skipper's dream of visiting Cuba will likely remain just that.

...or Barge II on the Majesty (or Vision class ship) to Cuba, in December (?) 2020. This seems like the next most logical business decision for Andy to make. Not only are people asking for it, it's aligns with Andy's "dream," and offering both 70K and Barge in the same year might help mitigate the demand for 70K since it essentially sells out before even public sales.

If 70K keeps the diverse lineup it's been offering, but there's also Barge catering to heavier subgenres, I still believe 70K could continue to sell out a Freedom/Voyager class ship while Barge focuses on a Sovereign/Vision class attendance.

I wouldn't be surprised if in 2020 they did 70k and Barge back to back to Cuba on the Majesty. This would get them more tickets to sell (4000 instead of 3000) and the thrash folk would get their Barge II - and Andy would fulfill his dream of going to Cuba (twice even!). And some people would do both, which would make it more likely to sell out both cruises.

There are a lot of 70k veterans who'd be glad to see a return to the Majesty, and it would make a lot of people return to 70k.And, if they did 70k and Barge back to back, people would get (if they did both) 80 bands instead of 60, but keep the nice atmosphere we had on that little old boat.Going on an even bigger boat would be quite a risky move. There's now a lot more competition in the rock/metal cruise sector, and it has lost its novelty and is now competing against other new types of festivals. There's already a couple of ski resort festivals for the winter season, a couple of beach resort festivals for the summer (and winter), and those give you more freedom when you're not stuck on a boat. I really do think you guys are overestimating the draw 70k has. This year was the first time they did sell out fast, but doubling (or having even 50% more tickets) the number would most likely result in a Barge-like fiasko. And if you took the biggest ship there is, there's no going back to anything smaller from there. Going back to the Majesty from the Independence could be advertised as fulfilling your loyal customer base's wishes.

As you mention the Barge was a financial disaster. Without the ship selling out, UMC surely lost some money or at best did just break even. Thus a Barge II would by itself be a high risk investment. So to have a Barge II and also having a smaller 70k would mean to have one high risk cruise and reducing the income potential of you cash cow. Just from a business perspective it does not seem to be a very good decision. For sure the nostalgic feelings of some long term survivor might be full filled with the Majesty. Although remember that Royal Caribbean did refurbish the Majesty quite a lot, it is no longer the same ship as it was 4 years ago.

I still think that 70k is, as a whole, quite unique. The fact of being "stuck on a boat" is one of the key elements that no other non-ship-festival can offer. Looking at the other cruises that are out there, no other offers such a diverse line-up.

You are probably right that UMC cannot rely upon the fact that the draw to 70k will always stay that high. But at this time cruise vacations as a whole are more popular then ever. It is the reason why RCC even has bigger ships. With cruises being so popular, chances are that you will find more and more metalheads wanting to combine cruise and metal festival. Also metal festivals are as popular as ever. WOA 2019 sold out in the blink of an eye. That seems to be no reason for UMC to reduce the available tickets.

Also I've read from other survivors that it is Andy's wish to have more "new blood" on board. With moving to a smaller ship to accommodate the wishes of the very loyal long term customers, that would be doing just the opposite.

Every time I read cruisers asking to return to the Majesty I secretly hope that, if that ever happens, which it won't, they are among the ~1000 cruisers who will lose the chance to get a spot on the cruise.

Amalu wrote:Still the Independence of the Seas did sell out every year.

Or, rather, so UMC claims. Which year was it when there were like twenty open categories left a week before sailing and all of a sudden two days before the cruise it was announced that the cruise is now sold out. Sure it is...

As for there being 1000 people left without a ticket; no, if you read my post, there'd be 1000 more tickets. Ok, fair enough, maybe there'd be 500 more tickets due to a few people wanting to do both. Barge could have some "smaller" death, black and thrash metal that don't really draw much crowd on 70k (think Immolation, Incantation etc. who've played to 20-30 people on 70k in the middle of the night or early morning) and let 70k have the bigger names in those genres like Cannibal Corpse, Overkill, Satyricon etc. along the lighter side of metal.

UMC and Andy have been saying that they want to keep the passenger to band ratio the same, so going to a bigger boat would mean, say 80 bands. That would only work well if the cruise was at least one day longer (two would be optimal), which would raise the prices and make it even more expensive - and less interesting for both newcomers and veterans who are struggling already with current pricing. And imagine the whining if they added more bands? Less is more as we learned after the move to the Liberty.

Or, hell, they could do two 70k's back to back with the same lineup on the Majesty.

Like someone wrote earlier, currently only RCC ships sailing to Cuba are Empress and Majesty that are both smaller than Independence. I'd love to go to Cuba, but I don't think it's gonna happen soon with 70K. I never went on 70K on Majesty and also not on Barge to Hell so can't say much to that. I don't think it makes sense to go back to a smaller ship. But maybe there could be Barge II on a smaller ship, I don't know? Like Memnoch said there's a lot of other metal events too, the Full Metal Cruise and here in Finland we've had the Radio Rock cruises since 2010, though it's rock and metal. As someone who has lived in Austria and loves snowboarding, Full Metal Mountain would be cool, but they have a gap year 2019.

One speculation about 70K's 10th cruise is the bigger ship thing. The ships bigger than Independence on RCC fleet include her sisters Freedom and Liberty (not much bigger by weight or max pax) and the Oasis class (Oasis, Allure, Harmony, Symphony) and Quantum class (Quantum, Anthem, Ovation). Oasis class has max. pax capacity of 6360-6680 and Quantum ca. 4900 whereas Indy has pax 4370 max.

So out of curiosity I was browsing through RCC's website and looking for cruises for January and February of 2020. The sail dates not available can very well be cruises already sold out, docking from maintenance or a special charter cruise like ours, who knows.

Quantum sails from Singapore and Ovation from Sydney, Australia so they can be ruled out. Anthem does Caribbean cruises, but from Cape Liberty, New Jersey and is already selling 8-9 night cruises for next year including January and February.
Of the Oasis class ships Harmony sails from Orlando and Oasis and Symphony from Miami, all are selling January and February 7 night cruises so I doubt we'll go on any of those ships. Allure sails from Fort Lauderdale and also has 7 night cruises for January and February. Only sail date not on sale is Sunday, February 9th. But a bigger ship AND 7 nights instead of 4 nights? I doubt it.

Then we come to our current ship Independence, doing 4 and 5 night cruises from Fort Lauderdale. Indy arrives to Port Everglades on Thursday January 16th, but the next available cruise after that is on Friday 24th, so there's space for two 4 night cruises there: Thu 16th to Mon 20th and Mon 20th to Fri 24th.
What's more interesting is that Indy returns from the 5 night cruise departing on Friday January 24th on Wednesday 29th and then the next available departure is Monday February 3rd.
Then there's also no available departure on Saturday February 8th, next cruise leaving on Thursday 13th. After that the next departure date unavailble for booking is Thursday February 27th.

tl; dr: My best guess is that we'll sail on the same ship and the same time as these last years, but we'll have one day more, so departing already on Wednesday January 29th and returning Monday February 3rd. Could that mean two destinations? Because looking at the current 5 night cruises that the Independence does, there's: cruising day, Labadee Haiti, Falmouth Jamaica, cruising day OR cruising day, George Town Grand Cayman, Cozumel Mexico, cruising day. And if so, what are those two destinations? I think we can exclude Labadee because we're already going there for the second time now.

In one of the threads with ship speculation someone posted RCC's charter cruise rates and ships bigger than Indy can't be chartered for 4-night cruises, so a bigger ship may automatically mean longer cruise.

Based on the Indy dates you found I would hope for a January 16th cruise because February 2 is the Super Bowl in Miami, so that would be brutal for hotel and flight costs.

My best guess is that we'll sail on the same ship and the same time as these last years, but we'll have one day more, so departing already on Wednesday January 29th and returning Monday February 3rd. Could that mean two destinations?

Nice research.

I actually agree that a safe "bigger and better" would be a 5-night cruise with two destinations. The only wrench in that theory is that Andy did specifically state the 2019 cruise would be our last year on the Indy... I do presume 70k will remain on something with a similar capacity, though.

But 42 bands announced for 2019 thus far and I'm noticing a lot less "heavy/extreme" bands than previous years... in my mind, this further solidifies my guess that there *will* be a Barge II (probably on Majesty to Cuba or something of the like) in addition to 70K. There's a hell of a lot more demand for a Barge II now than there was in 2012, and 70K is "waitlist only" many months in advance, even with under half the bands announced. Bringing back Barge is in no way a high risk investment. Adding Barge into the mix would help mitigate the demand for 70K, would help mitigate the fact that 70K is almost sold out before public sales even begin, and it would also open the door for thousands more tickets for UMC as a whole. Planning two cruises (plus a European expansion, as Andy stated he's looking into) might also be a good explanation as to the messy announcement schedule and seemingly "distant" 70K administration; e.g. UMC is busy af. Andy did say in an interview that he has plans in action for UMC up to 2022...

The only wrench in that theory is that Andy did specifically state the 2019 cruise would be our last year on the Indy... I do presume 70k will remain on something with a similar capacity, though.

When did he ever specifically state it was the last year? The exact wording, to my memory, is 'One more year on the Independence of the Seas.' That doesn't exclude further years, it just explicitly commits to 2019 on the Independence without qualifier for 2020.

Re: Brian saying Barge II is NOT a high risk investment...I strongly disagree. This is somewhat of a generalization on my part, but I think it's safe to say that there's a loose socioeconomic association with metal subgenres that creates a barrier to attendance for something like Barge for a lot of those fans. You can argue that 6000 people at Maryland Deathfest demonstrates the commercial viability, but that's an event in a densely populated area where ticket prices are as low as $33 for one day passes, and those bodies are counted in the attendance total. I think it's a bit of a jump to get people travelling to a less central area of the USA and spend $1400 more, with mandatory weekdays included.

I dunno, there's always rumbling on the internet for fans of heavier metal, but it results in small niche festivals, or Samm Dunn only getting 25% of the crowdfunded budget for his heavily requested extreme episode of Metal Evolution. If I'm Andy, I'm not doing it unless I need to get rid of some money.

You can argue that 6000 people at Maryland Deathfest demonstrates the commercial viability, but that's an event in a densely populated area where ticket prices are as low as $33 for one day passes, and those bodies are counted in the attendance total.

Ah - real conversation on the matter! You make good points, my friend, but I believe something like Inferno Metal Fest is a much better comparison than MDF. I have friends from Halifax going to Inferno, which is pretty outstanding to me since this isn't exactly a very wealthy part of the country. MDF, to me, still seems quite "underground," to be honest; they cater to the black/death/extreme very well, but if you look at the caliber/mainstream pull that the bands on the original Barge had, it's not really the same. MDF has a 3-5 bands as "big" as about half of the bands on Barge, for example.

Furthermore, the Majesty is what, ~2,750 passengers? There's a break-even target somewhere. Obviously it's all speculation on our part, but there's no way in hell a business should exist if it has to be sold out to be profitable. So where's that target? 50% capacity? 75%? 85% 90%?

My last thought is that: I didn't know 70000tons (or Barge) was even a thing until 2015... Barge is unquestionably more niche than 70k, but I totally believe there's a much greater demand for it now than there was in 2012.